Lemonade Anyone?

Danielle has been bugging me for a couple of months to have a lemonade stand and I finally relented and agreed her and her friend Whitney could do it as long as my kitchen floor remained free of sticky lemon juice. So last Saturday when we were sure we were strep throat free they stood on the corner outside our house and peddled glasses of lemonade at 50 cents a shot. By the way, they made twelve bucks...not too bad for a couple of ten year-old girls and a jug of lemonade.

Once they realized Rayce wasn't going to leave them in peace they decided he could handle the marketing end.

At this rate college tuition should be no problem.

Blah

The Nelson's are sick. All of us are sick, with strep throat.

I haven't had strep since I was a kid and it isn't any more fun as an adult.

A Very Good Start

So the day before Dan went back to the clinic from Christmas break we decided to go up to Cave Creek for some lunch and hiking. Never did I imagine the hike would be so beautiful. There was water running in the Cave Creek and the saguaro looked amazing!

First we stopped by El Encanto for some lunch.

When we come here Dan and I usually get to have an actual conversation because the kids are distracted by all the wildlife.

Rayce amassed quite the collection of sticks along the way, when I explained to him he couldn't take them all home he decided they were slowing him down.

Haha, maybe Avie wont think I'm so funny when she gets older!

Poor Avie got going a little too fast and fell right into a cactus, Dan spent the next five minutes picking little spines out of her fingers, good thing she's tough!

Only about six more months left in Arizona, we're trying to enjoy every last minute we have here before we begin a new adventure.

Christmas

For the first time in three years we decided to stay home for Christmas and not go to Utah to be with family. I was worried Christmas wouldn't be the same, and it definitely was not. But all of us agreed it was the best Christmas we've had together!

Christmas eve, the kids are all in their new pj's that Grandma sent.

Daddy read The Night Before Christmas even though Danielle was protesting she had to get to bed so as to not cross the big jolly man in the bright red suit.

Danielle gave us fair warning that she was going to wake us up early...but I wasn't anticipating 5 am!

We made them go back to bed but could only hold them off until 6, so we headed down stairs and sure enough Santa came.

The one thing Danielle was really counting on was a violin so she could start her lessons and Santa did not disappoint.

Rayce in an over-sized cardboard pirate ship.

Christmas breakfast to be followed by church and a whole day of no where to go, pure heaven...although we did miss our families.

And what does a family do after an amazing Christmas?

They enjoy the beautiful weather, together! Merry Christmas!

Double Digits

My sweet Danielle turned ten on December 12th!

Here she is at 4 years old which seemed like yesterday.

Now all grown up at her dance recital!

And posing for a picture with Santa (Avie opted out).

And eating with her volleyball team after their last game, go Royals!

Whew, beside turning ten she's had a busy month, we love you Danielle, welcome to the double digits!

The Biggest Boy

On December 3rd, 2006 after a short labor we welcomed a happy, content baby Rayce into our family and he's been nothing short of an awesome kid!!!


Now that five years have gone by I can say with surety that he's pretty much the same personality as he was as a small baby, happy!

He was always smiling!

And was lucky enough to have a sister that adored him! (still does most of the time).

He loves to ride his motorcycle

He loved his birthday cake and the attempt by a loving mother to make it (she's a cake amateur!)

He loved all the new birthday gifts he received including a new big boy bike! He couldn't wait to change out of his church clothes to ride it!

We love our Rayce!

Deck the Halls

We got our Christmas decor up this year with relative ease. Only one sibling fight and one broken bulb! I know I should jump on the shatterproof bulb bandwagon, but I really love glass bulbs.

Usually Dan ends up putting the tree up mostly by himself (because most of the time we start too late at night and all the kids crash out), but we all hung in there this year.

Danielle decided we should have a red, green, silver tree this year. Here's the finished project sans silver ribbon that I went out and bought the next day.
I can only hope the rest of the holiday season goes so smoothly! It gives me a lot of encouragement that I can respond to any of my kids missteps by singing "you better watch out, you better not cry...", if only we had something that possessed this leverage all year long!